Studies from the Brookings Institute and the University of Minnesota on how many jobs commuters can reach via public transportation

Population data for the 30 largest metro areas

Spending on transportation among the 30 largest metro areas

Federal government measures of transit coverage and usage including ridership data

Transportation-related actions by elected officials over the past 30 years

What we love: In order to get a complete picture of Tampa Bay’s transportation system, the Times had to work with multiple datasets and deal with numerous ways to measure transportation efficacy. The heat maps that showed the number of jobs people could access via public transportation are particularly alarming. This story reminds us that multiple datasets are better than one, since they can provide a more complete picture of an issue.

Crime statistics voluntarily reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement

What we love: Similar to the Tampa Bay Times article, the Miami Herald had to consult multiple data sets in order to develop a clear picture of the issue. In this case, no perfect dataset existed, and that became the story. It seems absurd that a metro region of this size would not have a uniform recording process for keeping track of shooting incidents. However, this type of story is a common one in the data reporter’s lexicon — the case of incomplete records.

By: Troy Griggs, Gregor Aisch and Sarah Almukhtar of the New York Times

Data used:

U.S. Geological Survey

The American Society of Civil Engineers

The Nevada Division of Water Resources

The Association of State Dam Safety Officials

American Rivers

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Inventory of Dams

What we love: If you’re thinking of replicating this story at your news organization, our reporter Lindsay Carbonell has some words of caution. She walked through a similar dataset last week and found that sometimes this type of data can be misleading. In Lindsay’s study of dam inspections in North Carolina, she found that demolished or out-of-commission dams were not removed from the database. You can read about her quest to find a dam that hadn’t been inspected in 30 years here.

Data used:2015 National Bridge Inventory by the Federal Highway Administration

What we love: This is a usable, engaging, county-by-county breakdown of the nation’s infrastructure problem. Once again, if you’re thinking of localizing this story, be sure to ask questions of your data. Do the structural scores make sense? Could there be something skewing your data? It never hurts to pick up the phone and call the organization in charge of keeping records, or other people who just might know something you don’t.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for Truck Transportation

What we love: This is another easy story to localize. The data used to find the number of trucking industry jobs per 1,000 jobs is readily available on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. You can also find historic employment data and wages for each county.

To submit your data stories for future On Our Desk roundups, email us at help@carolinadatadesk.org.